cause of the rapid decay that has since set in. Year by year the branches
have dropped off, the snow and the lightning have had their victims. It is
said that only two or three years ago one branch towards the East was still
living, but when I saw it, the trunk was bare and bark-less, full of little
worm-holes, and quite without a spark of vitality. The last remaining
fragment has since fallen, and now the site of the tree is only marked by
the row of young cypresses which have been planted in a circle round the
base of the Oak of Mamre. But who shall prophesy that, a century hence, a
tree will not have acquired sufficient size and antiquity to be foisted
upon uncritical pilgrims as the veritable tree under which Father Abraham
dwelt!

The Jewish tradition does not quite agree with the view that identified
this old tree with Mamre. According to Jewish tradition, the Tree is at the
ruins of Ramet el-Khalil, the High Place of the Friend, _i.e._ of Abraham,
about two miles nearer Jerusalem. Mr. Shaw Caldecott has propounded the
theory that this site is Samuel's Ramah, and that the vast ruins of a
stone-walled enclosure here represent the enclosure within which Samuel's
altar stood. The Talmud has it that Abraham erected a guest-house for the
entertainment of strangers near the Grove of Mamre. There were doors on
every side, so that the traveller found a welcome from whichever direction
he came. There our father made the name of God proclaimed at the mouth of
all wayfarers. How? After they had eaten and refreshed themselves, they
rose to thank him. Abraham answered, "Was the food mine? It is the bounty
of the Creator of the Universe." Then they praised, glorified, and blessed
Him who spake and the world was.

We are on the road now near Hebron, but, before entering, let us recall a
few incidents in its history. After the Patriarchal age, Hebron was noted
as the possession of Caleb. It also figures as a priestly city and as one